Macron says France will ban social media for under-15s if EU does not

Published on 10/06/2025 – 21:15 GMT+2•Updated
21:24

President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that France will ban access to social media for children under the age of 15 within “a few months” if this is not done at a European level.

“We must ban social media for those under 15,” Macron told the public television channel France 2 after a school staff member was stabbed by a 14-year-old student at the entrance to a secondary school in Nogent.

“I’m giving us a few months to get the European mobilisation going. Otherwise…we’ll start doing it in France. We can’t wait,” he said.

A pupil fatally stabbed a school staff member during a routine bag check at the middle school in eastern France, officials said.

The teenager was arrested at the scene.

A police officer assisting with the bag checks sustained minor injuries while apprehending the suspect, who used the same knife in both attacks, according to the National Gendarmerie.

It’s not immediately clear whether the attack was linked to anything the student had seen on social media, or why local media had made the link.  

This is a developing story and our journalists are working on further updates.